Chuckanut Deserves a Round of Applause – Big Winner at GABF!

Congratulations to the wonderful people at Chuckanut Brewery, who took home the coveted Small Brewing Company of the Year award at the Great American Beer Fest. But, that wasn’t all. The Bellingham brewery took home Small Brewing Company Brewer of the Year (Nice work Will!), two golds (Helles and Kolsch), a silver (Dunkel) and a bronze (Alt). Their haul is beyond comparison, and a testament to their creativity and unmatched quality.

We recently visited Chuckanut, so that the new mom could finally get a glimpse of the brewery. If you haven’t been there, expect a friendly and intimate look at one of the country’s best small brewers. At the brewpub, you can sit along the inlet, taste excellent local food and even poke into the brewery and smell the fine scent of German Alt, Kolsch and Helles.

What I love about this brewery – their commitment to making perfectly crafted German beer, in a NW market. We have a tendency to ignore anything that doesn’t have more than 50 IBU or 7% ABV. Its just the way of the NW, where we dig our big beer. But Chuckanut is passionate about crafting perfectly balanced beers with utmost clarity. In fact, I have never seen any brewer (not even in Germany) work clarity from filtering the way that Will Kemper does. Kudos to the Kempers for bringing incredible German beer to this great state.

So, raise a glass to the Kempers (Will and Mari) and toast their success. They are helping keep Washington on the map.

A few other Washington brewers brought home medals from GABF. Silver City Brewing, Fish Brewing, and RAM (Seattle) each took home a gold. Fish, Big Time Brewing and newcomer, American Brewing (Congrats Skip and Neil) each took home a bronze.

Check out the full list of winners by following this link to the GABF website. Good to see my home town breweries, Hoppin Frog Brewing (Akron, OH) and Fat Head’s Brewing (North Olmstead, OH) pulling in two medals each. It was strange to see a noticeable absence from the glut of wonderful Michigan breweries, as well as only one medal for Asheville, NC, America’s self-proclaimed “Beer City.”

Congratulation again to all the Washington breweries that took home hardware!